According to John Brimelow:

"Open interest plunged 21,256 lots, 66.11 tonnes or 3.53%, one of the largest changes in history..."

And this was before the latest round today after this early report.

Open Interest is the total number of contracts for a given future category. When the Open Interest declines on a marked price decrease this is generally considered the net liquidation of long positions. And conversely, on a rising price it is considered short covering. The weekly reports give more insight into who was doing the buying and selling. The report should be daily, and should include specific position changes for traders with aggregate positions higher than 5 percent of any total market for a specific product.

Next Tuesday is the option expiration for Calls and Puts on the Comex gold futures. There was a particularly large concentration of contracts at the 1200 level which we were watching from Monday when we promised you many market shenanigans in the coming option expiration, for both the mining stocks and precious metals.

We also picked up quite a bit more activity on the part of 'posting trolls,' who are traders both independent and with hedge funds who set the stage for major bear raids with sensationalistic statements and exaggerated 'headlines.'

The impunity with which this bear raid was conducted makes us wonder if the CFTC and SEC will ever do anything to clean up these markets. The best defense is not to rise to the bait, and trade in the short term in markets so obviously given to manipulation by large trading interests with fraudulent intents. These markets are tainted.

If the trend is broken it will be time to step aside. Until then we sell strength and buy weakness, slowly. For most it is better to take small incremental positions and then just let them ride the ups and downs.

As an aside, the hysteria, or Straßenschreier, with which the actions of Germany to curb naked short selling were greeted was very funny last night, and highly entertaining.

As you may not realize, naked short selling has been illegal in the US for some time, as least as far as equities are concerned. It was not enforced as the regulators turned a blind eye to many abuses that crept into the 'naturally efficient markets' on their watch. It is tantamount to counterfeiting, and in the hands of a party with pockets deep enough to permit it to dominate small markets, it is a blatant form of control fraud.

By the way, I hear that there has been almost no coverage of William K. Black's highly credible and shocking revelations on the public media in the States, outside of a piece on Bill Moyers' Journal. Can anything be so obvious as the control wielded by the corporatists?

But what is of concern to the Wall Street demimonde are their beloved CDS, which are as foul a form of white collar criminal abuse as ever has been seen since the creation of the Federal Reserve Bank. Any attempts to limit them will be resisted with threats, promises of dire outcomes and ruin, and buckets of money for politicians and regulators.

The rest of the world is beginning to act with revulsion at the destructive corruption of Washington and New York, and the American oligarchs.

Merkel made them squeal with her own version of shock and awe, and it was music to many ears. You go, Höllenmädchen.